Animals don’t even try to look any different from what nature intended. They humbly wear their shells, scales, spines, plumes, pelts, and down. The conscious impulse to change one’s appearance is found only among humans.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKAI slide my arm from under the sleeper’s head and it is numb, full of swarming pins, on the tip of each, waiting to be counted, the fallen angels sit.
More Wislawa Szymborska Quotes
-
-
I prefer the absurdity of writing poems to the absurdity of not writing poems.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
The joy of writing. The power of preserving. Revenge of a mortal hand.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
Generally speaking, life is so rich and full of variety; you have to remember all the time that there is a comical side to everything.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
They say the first sentence in any speech is always the hardest. Well, that one’s behind me, anyway.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
I’d have to be really quick to describe clouds – a split second’s enough for them to start being something else.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
Life lasts but a few scratches of the claw in the sand.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
Poorly prepared for the dignity of life, I barely keep up with the pace of the action imposed. Reality demands.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
Though I may deny poets their monopoly on inspiration, I still place them in a select group of Fortune’s darlings.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
Sometimes I write quickly, sometimes I spend several weeks on a single poem. I would really love for readers not to be able to guess which of the poems took so much work!
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
Such certainty is beautiful, but uncertainty is more beautiful still.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
When I pronounce the word Future, the first syllable already belongs to the past. When I pronounce the word Silence, I destroy it.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
Memory at last has what I sought.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
Existentialists are monumentally and monotonously serious; they don’t like to joke.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
In every tragedy, an element of comedy is preserved. Comedy is just tragedy reversed.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
Let the people who never find true love keep saying that there’s no such thing. Their faith will make it easier for them to live and die.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA






